Day 101: Connecting Route (x2), Mishicot Segment, Manitowoc County
Day 101: Saturday, October 2nd, 2021
Total Miles covered for the day: 10.3
Location 1: The Connecting Route between the Point Beach Segment and the Mishicot Segment
5.3 miles of trail half-covered plus 5.3 miles extra biking
Bring on... the Mammoth Hike Challenge.
41 miles in 31 days. Why 41? From what I understand, it's because the IATA has been around for 41 years. Next year, I imagine the challenge will be 42 miles.
So what was great about this year's challenge was that we had a lot of miles left to cover, and in October there were five weekends in which to do it. This was the start of the first weekend in October, and the weather... was forecast for rain.
At least it was last night. Ten days ago, the forecast was terrible. Then a few days ago it changed, for the eastern half of the state. Theresa hurried up and scheduled a SnOTT Walk for a connecting route out in Manitowoc County. People were excited, and best of all, our custom-made, fully embroidered SnOTT Patches were here!! We were super-excited to be able to give away patches to the people who showed up to hike with us.
And then by Thursday, the forecast went to snail-slime. The forecast for Saturday, during the time we were supposed to be hiking, was thunderstorms followed by an all-day rain. Theresa went online and canceled all the event notices.
But on Friday, it became apparent that not every one got the message. It was entirely possible that people would be showing up anyway. So on Saturday morning, I jumped in the van and drove all the way out to Manitowoc County to the very edge of Lake Michigan just in case anyone showed up looking for us. And when I got there - the weather was beautiful.
All the way out as I was driving I kept expecting that the rain would start. And all the way out, the skies got less and less cloudy, until when I reached the starting point of the walk at 10:37 am the skies were mostly sunny and blue, with a few clouds.
And there was no one there.
This was not the first time that we ended up hiking separately. In fact the rest of the month will be riddled with I-hiked, she-hiked stories because we're trying to reach the 41-mile goal any way we can. But the previous time we did this out beyond Cornell I ended up recording everything on the day I covered the ground, and not fully recognizing Theresa and her hiking days, which wasn't fair at all. After all - it is our mutual Ice Age Adventure, and her story is every bit as important as mine. So from here on out, if we hike or bike something separately, I'll be blogging accordingly.
So here I was at the beginning. It was 10:37 am, and the temperature was 68 degrees. I wasn't going to waste the day, so I grabbed my bicycle and started walking.
The SnOTT Walk was on again! Long live the snail!
There are several ways one person with a bike and a car can cover five miles of roadway. One can, for example, drop a bike at one end, drive to the other end, hike to the bike, then bike to the car. Or, one can drop off the car, bike to the end, walk back to the car and drive back to the bike. Either one of these would have been preferable to what I did, which was to walk with my bike down the road, and after reaching the end, get on the bike and ride back to the car.
The reason this last method doesn't work is that a person walking with a bicycle is a road hazard. Not because it's hard to stay off the road, but because so many people will stop to ask if you're in distress and need help.
Picture this. You're driving down a country road, and you see a walker wearing a safety vest. You slow down a little, give them plenty of room, and maybe wave as you go by. Same with a bicyclist wearing a safety vest. Both of those make sense and are well within our scope of prior experience. Normal people doing normal things.
Now - take the safety-vest wearing individual OFF the bike and walk down that same road and something is obviously wrong. No one does this. It's not normal. What do you do? If you're a kind individual you stop and ask if assistance is needed. "Do you need a ride?" "Do you need help? I have a bike rack on the back." "Is everything OK?"
I had four separate people actually stop and ask me if I needed a ride, and several others that I managed to encourage down the road without stopping by smiling, waving, or giving a thumbs up sign. Two of the would-be helpers actually passed me by, then turned around to come back to ask if I needed help.
I will never walk down the road with a bicycle again.
So besides all the helpful motorists I encountered on this sunny Saturday morning, I was able to play games, listen to nature, and make philosophical observations about the people who lived nearby.
My favorite game to play on these walks is Road Kill Identification. The skill level needed for playing this game while driving down the road at 70 miles an hour is different than the skill level needed while walking. For example - what kind of snake is that? Or is it a lizard of some kind? Did that used to be a frog or a toad? If you spot bird paste, is it of the sparrow variety, or something more exotic? You get the point. Score the game any way you want.
When there were no cars passing by (thankfully, I often spent minutes walking between vehicles) I was able to experience the Wisconsin farmlands by sight, and sound, and smell. Despite dire warnings, there were no fields taking on cow manure, so that wasn't an issue, but there were other smells, mostly quite pleasant. What I saw was beautiful, too, but what impressed me most was the grasshoppers. I never saw any, but I could hear them, and the crickets, by the millions. The air was full of their constant noise, which was only interrupted by the buzzing and crackling of the high power lines as I walked beneath them. I heard that sound for a quarter mile in each direction.
As to philosophy, what I got was a sense of the pride and pure stubbornness of these people making their living off the land any way they could. From farming to firewood, home crafts to eggs, these people literally drew life from the earth as though they themselves grew from the soil. It's a way of life I only know in passing. It's easier to see up close if you pass more slowly.
Finally as I headed down the last hill into town (where my fourth and final offer of a ride occurred) I passed by other signs of normal life in America. Trees covered in toilet paper. No doubt the high school had a special dance or important sporting event, and it was commemorated through the time-honored tradition of TP'ing those involved. Ah, youth.
I reached the intersection of County V and Woodlawn Road at 12:07 pm, temperature 72 degrees. I had been making tracks, as they say, because I wanted to get as much done today as possible. I jumped on my bike, and headed back to the car, getting there at 12:35.
Location 2: The Mishicot Segment
2.9 miles of trail half-covered plus 1.2 miles extra biking
The next segment to the west was the Mishicot Segment. I knew that Theresa was planning to possibly hike this Segment later in the week with some friends of ours, so I locked up my bicycle at the high school near the eastern end of the Segment, and drove to the excellent parking area on County Road B.
My GPS told me to drive there via Pit Road, but when I reached the turn all I saw was a 'keep out, this means you' sign, so I turned around.
Oddly enough, this is the very road that the IAT travels on, so...whatever.
After parking on County Road B, I started hiking east at 1:07 pm, temperature up to 74 degrees.
The hike starts by going through a very organic bit of forest land and around the end of a farmer's field. Then it hikes along and over a small drumlin. All during this part of the hike I was nothing more than a walking feast for the uncountable swarming mosquitoes. Lacking mosquito netting and repellent, it was a rapid and rueful sprint along what should otherwise have been a very pleasant walk.
When I actually reached Pit Road, the signage for the trail became terrible. Up until then the blazes were good, but at Pit Road they dried up almost completely. Because I had studied the maps beforehand, I knew that I needed first to turn left onto Pit Road, then turn right at the T-intersection to stay on Pit Road, which was dry gravel. I was passed by only one vehicle, a kid on a 4-wheeler, but I passed several large homes as I walked. That explained the private road, anyway.
I finally ditched the mosquitoes as I left Pit Road and walked into town past the first of many pumpkin gardens I would see.
Now in town, the walking became mostly urban. I also got more in the mood for snapping photos, so I have more of them to share.
Of course, the first feature most hikers will admire here is the lovely old covered bridge that crosses East Twin River.
The signage through here was actually very good, and following the trail was easy. Turning left after going under the bridge, I encountered the dam, and saw more people fishing in one place than I have seen since - well - ever.
Seriously - it was totally outside my experience. How could that many people be fishing one hole? Cripes, Charlie Berens would have a field day with this, eh?
To solve the mystery, I finally had to ask. "Salmon," was the one-word reply.
Well, alrighty then. What would it take to make two dozen serious fishermen all fish in the same 30x40 foot hole? The prospect of catching a big, fat salmon, I guess. It reminded me of the indoor trout fishing pond they used to set up at the big trade shows inside the Coliseum in Madison when I was a kid.
As I continued downstream, there were more fishermen sprinkled along the river, but not as many as were fishing that one, big hole below the dam. Still - what a sight to see.
Once I left the park, I encountered the one location where the route seemed uncertain.
And I didn't even bring my water shoes!
After consulting my map I determined that I did have to turn left and walk over the bridge on 147, although based on the sign I guess one option was to ignore the bridge and cross the river by wading.
Then the trail arced along down Washington street, past the school where I picked up my bike, and finally back to Woodlawn and the end of the line at County V. I ended that walk at
2:03 pm, and my knees were acting up on me, making each step fairly painful. I was more than happy at that point to take a little rest.
So I biked up to the car, a distance of 1.2 miles, and had a little snack. I locked up my bike there and took a drive to the north/west trailhead, where I was able to pull off and park at the edge of the road. I started walking again at 2:34 pm, and it was now up to 76 degrees, with still no rain in sight. In fact, the day got more and more sunny as it passed.
I was taking no chances. I wore the mosquito netting this time!!
The upper 0.9 miles of this Segment is a series of straight lines and right-angle turns, as it meanders along and between farm fields. The footing here was absolutely terrible, with the ground chewed up and rutted. It felt more like a cow path than a foot path, and after suffering through nearly a half-mile of this I decided to get six feet off the trail and walk in the field.
What a huge difference it made walking on the hard-packed dirt rather than the overgrown and rutted trail.
Just before I reached the finish, and my waiting bicycle, I received a surprise call from Theresa. It was 2:58 pm.
"Where are you?"
I told her where I was, and she came and picked me up. I hadn't been expecting her for hours, if at all, but she surprised me by showing up with enough time left in the day to do some hiking.
However, before we did, we decided it would make the most sense if we took the advice of another van-sleeping hiker and scope out a place to sleep before dark, which we did.
We drove all over creation evaluating parking spots, and the one thing we determined was that there weren't any good ones. The parking areas at Shea Lake and Heidmann Lake were absolutely out, with overnight sleeping strictly forbidden. Each and every parking area along the Tisch Mills Segment was also terrible.
As we were checking out the dead end on Mill Lane, which seemed to be the best option, we encountered an entire Scout Troop hiking the trail, some of whom were looking a little hot and bedraggled. In hindsight, we both believe this may have been the Scout Troop that was looking for us, and we wish we had stopped to give them the chance to identify us as 'The Snails'. We certainly had enough patches to have given each kid one, and I really wish we had.
In the end, after checking out all the parking areas, this dead end seemed like the least of all evils, but Theresa correctly assessed that it would only be acceptable to park there if we introduced ourselves to the people who lived at the nearby house and ask for permission to stay there overnight. It turned out to be a widow who was quite pleased that we asked, so once again Theresa's instincts were spot-on. We would eventually come back here to spend the night.
The one place we didn't check out was the one closest to where we started, and that would have been the hands-down winner. Had we evaluated the parking area at the north end of the East Twin River Segment, we surely would have stayed there overnight, and probably gotten a lot more hiking done. Theresa also mentioned that she wanted to check that spot out, but I somehow didn't ever get there. Definitely my mistake.
Location 3: The Connecting Route between the north trailhead of the Tisch Mills segment and the intersection of Collegiate Road and County AB
1.6 miles of trail covered + 0.5 miles of trail half-covered.
So after killing off the majority of the afternoon driving in circles fruitlessly looking for a place to sleep, we selected a bit of connecting route to walk. I was still in power-mode, trying to get as many miles in as possible, so we ended up walking in different directions. We placed our cars at opposite ends of Nuclear Road and crossed paths in the middle. That walk started at 5:00 pm, and it was still 75 degrees.
As I reached the waiting car on the east end of that road, I spotted this lovely open-grown oak tree.
As I drove back, Theresa had not yet reached the car, as expected. We determined that I should go an extra half-mile up the road and walk that distance while Theresa finished her hike. We both reached the car at exactly the same time, somewhere just past 6:00 pm.
Brock's Progress on the Mammoth Hike Challenge: 10.3 miles
Theresa's Progress on the Mammoth Hike Challenge: 1.6 miles
Running Total: 733.5 miles of trail covered, 8.7 miles of trail half-covered; 96.1 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 101.
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